Hi, I’m Jenny. I’m a 4th year physical therapy student and I’m currently doing a placement in one of the local hospitals. I came to this program because I’ve been having a lot of anxiety on my placement. I notice that when I first meet with a person to assess them, I’m worrying that they won’t think I’m competent because I’m a student and then they won’t come back.
I don’t know, this module said that there aren’t really good or bad emotions, but I think I’d be OK not feeling anxiety…I’ve had enough experience with that for a lifetime! It was kinda hard identifying what I was thinking when I was thinking it, but I think I captured some of the thoughts I have most frequently. I hope I’m doing this right. I’m sure there are other things I do in the moment, but these were the ones I was aware of.
The homework was kinda interesting this week. I wasn’t aware of how unaware I’ve been. I tried to focus on being in the present a little more on my walk to work. Normally I just keep my head down and have my headphones on; this week I tried to leave the music off and pay more attention to what’s actually happening. Doing this, I noticed there were a couple of interesting stores I hadn’t noticed before. It was pretty cool to hear the birds chirping.
I took a look over my goals (see beneath) and they still stand. I guess one goal that I would add is to talk more and worry less on the rare occasion that I go out with classmates or with people from work.
So, there might actually be something to this. Over the week, I noticed that I was starting to be more aware of what I was thinking and feeling in the moment. A lot of times, it seems that my biggest concern is that people will think I’m stupid. One of the most helpful things I found was asking myself, what’s the worst thing that could happen and how likely is that really. I think asking myself the likelihood question was pretty key.
| My EDB | Possible Opposite Action |
| Not speaking in group situations and/or rehearsing what I’m going to say before I speak. | Just say what I’m thinking – no rehearsing. |
| Being overly tentative when I present something at rounds or in supervision. | Try to present more confidently. |
| Start preparing waaaayyyyy in advance of presentations. | Start preparing in a more reasonable time frame – maybe start by decreasing prep time by a day or so. |
| Blame myself and think that I’m doing something wrong if someone isn’t progressing fast enough in treatment. | Look at all the evidence and potential reasons the person is not progressing, like not doing their exercises at home. |
I added another exercise on, like suggested, since it’s usually when I start to get hot and sweaty that my anxiety really starts to increase, because I think that the person will notice that I’m getting anxious. Some of these also were similar physically, but didn’t freak me out, because no one was around to see me and I knew I was bringing the feelings on myself.
So, I came up with my hierarchy, and I think it covers the main things. I’m a bit concerned that none of my items have a distress level lower than 70, when I know the module said to start at something that’s in the 40 to 60 range. I guess I can give it a try and see how it goes.
So, I started my hierarchy by asking people at the store questions. It seemed like a bit of a tough one, since I couldn’t really keep talking to a store clerk for 30 minutes, because that would be really weird. Instead, I figured I would go to the mall, and aim to go into a bunch of stores in a row, asking the store people a question.
I can’t believe how quickly the last 10 weeks flew by.
So, here were my goals for this program and how much progress I made towards them.
